Rachel Noorda, Director of Book Publishing (She/Her)
Rachel Noorda is Director of Book Publishing and Assistant Professor of English at Portland State University. Dr. Noorda works closely with publishing industry organizations: she is on the board of PubWest and Chair of the Immersive Media & Reading 2020 Research Committee in partnership with Panorama Project. In both her scholarly work and offering opportunities to graduate students, Dr. Noorda is committed to and interested in transnational book industry perspectives. To this end, she works with wonderful scholars in the UK, Australia, Canada, Ghana, China, South Africa, and India on Border-Crossing Books and a transnational publishing network. Dr. Noorda is also an advocate of international experiences for the graduate students through study abroad and international exchange opportunities as well as international guest speakers and class topics. Dr. Noorda is a researcher of twenty-first century book studies, particularly on topics of entrepreneurship, marketing, small business, national identity, and international publishing. With this expertise, she is a series editor for Cambridge University Press, editorial board member of Publishing Research Quarterly, and a peer reviewer for Convergence and National Identities.
Courses: Introduction to Book Publishing, Book Publishing for Writers, Book Editing, Book Marketing, Researching Book Publishing
Robyn Crummer (She/Her)
Robyn is the Publisher of Ooligan Press and oversees its operations, in addition to mentoring students and teaching publishing courses. She has spent more than twelve years as a marketer in freelance, agency, and client-side roles. As a freelancer, she has worked with authors on platform-building and book marketing for the past three years. In her agency roles, she has worked as a content strategist, marketing copywriter, and copyeditor for brand accounts such as Condé Nast, Microsoft, and Wacom. And she was previously the Editorial Director and Marketing and Communications Manager for IT Revolution, overseeing the marketing and communication strategy for four books and three events a year. She earned a BA in Communication and Women's Studies from Southwestern University in 2001. She graduated in 2011 from Portland State University with an MA in Writing and Book Publishing. Since graduating, she has edited and marketed books about woodblock printing, Lady Gaga, IT, beer, and design thinking—just to name a few. Robyn enjoys knitting, canning, axe throwing, and hiking.
Courses: Publishing Studio, Publishing Lab, Book Marketing, Book Publishing for Writers
John Henley (He/Him)
John Henley is a well-known bookseller in the Pacific Northwest. As one of the earliest managers at Powell’s Bookstore, he developed the new books department in the late 1970s. He was also in charge of the rare books department. He has hand-sold books, sold books through catalogues, and sold books online. He has experience in small publishing ventures and is a published author of a novel and articles on bibliography. He was the manager for the Great Northwest Bookstore from 1990 to 2009. He taught the Bookselling course from 2001 to 2010 and has been with the graduate program in Book Publishing from its inception. He now teaches an intensive survey course, The Popular Book in the United States, designed to sharpen the skills of acquisitions editors. John has studied this subject since getting into the book business in the late 1960s. He is an Accredited Senior Appraiser of Books and Manuscripts in the American Society of Appraisers.
Course: The Popular Book in the United States
Corinne Gould (She/Her)
The opportunities to blend creativity and analytical thinking always bring Corinne Gould (she/her) back to marketing. In her first industry job, Corinne developed and managed the clarified title management workflow for metadata and influencer marketing strategy for Timber Press. She now leverages her equity lens, marketing acumen, and curiosity as the recruitment marketing manager at Portland State's School of Business, specializing in paid content marketing and storytelling. Corinne came to Portland and the master's in book publishing at Portland State in 2014 to fuse her pragmatic business background and passion for literature and critical theory. While at Ooligan Press, Corinne served as project manager for Untangling the Knot, The Ghosts Who Travel With Us, and Siblings and Other Disappointments. She also worked as a graduate assistant, planning and executing Transmit Culture events that centered innovation and racial and gender equity. Along with Dory Athey, Corinne supported the development and launch of the Oregon Writers of Color Showcase in collaboration with Literary Arts. She has also worked, volunteered, and interned across functional areas with HarperCollins Publishers, ISTE, Hawthorne Books, Late Night Library, The Masters Review, Pathos Literary Magazine, Allport Editions, and more.
Course: Book Marketing
Brian Parker
Brian Parker is the current adjunct instructor for Children’s Book Publishing and has always been in love with storytelling in every medium. After earning a BFA in graphic design & illustration from Mississippi State University, he worked for over 15 years in music publishing, corporate marketing, sports/entertainment, and children’s publishing specializing in Alaskana. He earned his MA in writing & publishing from Portland State University where he worked in Ooligan Press on projects like The Ghosts Who Travel With Me and the Write to Publish author events. In 2015, Brian started an independent publishing company, Believe In Wonder, which he co-owns with his wife. They have published 15 five-star reviewed titles. He works closely with educational groups like Literary Arts, The Right Brain Initiative, The Independent Publishing Resource Center, and First Book with a mission to promote diversity and inclusion in youth fiction and to inspire creativity in a new generation of readers and storytellers.
Course: Children's Book Publishing, Publishing for Writers
Anna Noak
Anna Noak has been a book publishing generalist and editor for the last eleven years, working in an assortment of genres published by varying sized houses, ranging from a small, startup YA press to a Body, Mind, Spirit imprint of Simon & Schuster. She has primarily worked in-house and has a broad background as an acquisition editor, list manager, production editor, project manager, and, most currently, as the editorial director of IT Revolution, a small press specializing in business books. Her freelance work has primarily been as a ghostwriter and book doctor. She has a Master of Arts in Writing from Portland State University with a concentration in Publishing. She lives and works in Portland, Oregon.
Course: Introduction to Publishing
Pariah Burke (He/Him)
Pariah Burke (http://iampariah.com) is a digital publishing and graphic design consultant, trainer, author, and speaker whose passion is Inspiring, Informing, and Empowering Creative Professionals™. Pariah literally wrote the book (and the curriculum used by colleges, universities, and trainers the world over) on digital publishing with InDesign, ePublishing with InDesign. He also wrote the first book for experienced InDesign users, Mastering InDesign for Print Design and Production, as well as other books, more than 25 video training courses, and more than 450 published tutorials and articles on the topics of InDesign, InCopy, Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator, typography, elearning, epublishing, iPad DPS publishing, creative and office efficiency, the business of design, and going freelance. Pariah travels everywhere from his home base in Portland, Oregon, and you can always find him sharing with, and helping, the creative pro community on Twitter @iampariah.
Course: Ebook Design
Olivia Croom (she/her)
Olivia is an award-winning book designer and pre-press expert. A small press enthusiast, Olivia has worked with publishers ranging from independent authors to the NYC corporate houses. With a decade of experience in book publishing, Olivia brings a refined eye for typography and a critical understanding of how design positions a book in today’s market. She earned her master’s degree in writing & book publishing from Portland State University and went on to work in the managing editorial department at Henry Holt & Co., an imprint of Macmillan Publishers, and the cover art department at Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Penguin Random House. A location-independent professional for many years, Olivia traded in the Concrete Jungle for the Pacific Northwest. You can view her portfolio on ochbookdesign.com.
Course: Advanced Book Design
Fiona Kenshole
I love the midwifery of being an agent, from getting your debut published to doing your movie deal. At Transatlantic we like to sell your book to publishers all over the world so I work with co-agents in 28 countries, selling worldwide rights. I specialize in children’s and YA from picture books to older teenage, and also represent a growing number of adult nonfiction titles.
I was VP of Development Acquisition at Laika, acquiring new projects including the Oscar-nominated THE BOXTROLLS. Previously I ran several UK children’s editorial departments at HarperCollins, Hodder (now Little Brown) and Oxford University Press where I published authors including Michael Bond (Paddington Bear), P.L Travers (Mary Poppins) and the Laureate Michael Morpurgo (War Horse) and was UK editor for Beverley Cleary, Lois Lowry, Bruce Coville, Gary Paulsen and Cynthia Voigt. I was nominated for “Editor of the Year” at the British Book Awards. My recent successes include Rosanne Parry’s MG A WOLF CALLED WANDER (Greenwillow) which has spent the last two years in the NYT bestseller list and has sold in 14 languages, Vicki Grant’s YA romcom, 36 QUESTIONS THAT CHANGED MY MIND ABOUT YOU (Running Press), which sold in 22 languages, and Sarah Mirk’s graphic novel GUANTANAMO VOICES (Abrams) which was a New York Times best graphic novel of 2020.
Course: Literary Agents and Acquisitions